Like all true loves, I can hardly remember (or want to remember) life before it. Did I find it or did it find me? I guess it was a typical “girl meets cereal,” “girl falls in love with cereal,” and “girl gets addicted to cereal.” Maybe addicted is too strong a word. I do eat other things for breakfast, but I like to have at least 3 boxes of Heart to Heart available at all times.

Ok, here’s the scoop. I used to love Cheerios. I would usually eat a big bowl of it with a little sugar sprinkled on top and a banana sliced in. The only problem was that I would feel hungry again after an hour or 2. Kashi’s Heart to Heart honey toasted oat cereal looks and tastes slightly like Cheerios because it is shaped liked little o’s – with the addition of little hearts – and is made from oats. The main ingredients of Cheerios are oats, sugar and cornstarch. The ingredients of Heart to Heart have oats and sugar, but also include 7 whole grains and sesame, plus other healthy ingredients. Maybe that’s why I don’t feel hungry again until lunchtime after eating it for breakfast.

When I’m running late to work (which is very often), I will pour some cereal in a baggie and eat it in the car or at school with my hot thermosed tea. I ignore my co-worker’s musings about how she used to give her daughter Cheerios in a baggie when she was 2, and keep on munching. Eating it the more civilized way in a bowl, I like to add vanilla soymilk and some fruit. It does have more sugar than Cheerios (5 grams vs. 1 gram), so I don’t sprinkle any sugar on top.

Ingredients: Whole oat flour, oat bran, evaporated cane juice, yellow corn meal, corn flour, Kashi seven whole grains & sesame® flour (whole: oats, long grain brown rice, rye, hard red winter wheat, triticale, buckwheat, barley, sesame seeds), oat fiber, wheat germ, honey, salt, decaffeinated green tea extract, sodium bicarbonate, alpha tocopherol acetate (natural vitamin E), ascorbic acid (vitamin C), natural flavor, Activin® grape seed extract, decaffeinated white tea extract, turmeric for color, pyridoxine hydrochloride (vitamin B6), ferrous fumarate, zinc oxide, beta carotene (source of vitamin A), folic acid, vitamin B12. (Contains wheat ingredients.

Some other healthy comparisons with Cheerios:

Cheerios: 190 mg sodium vs. Heart to Heart: only 90 mg sodium
Cheerios: 25% daily requirement of Vitamin B’s, 50% folic acid
Heart to Heart: 100% for vitamins B6, B12, vitamin E and folic acid (there are also vitamins A, C, iron and zinc)

The emphasis on the “heart” in Heart to Heart cereal is for the heart healthy benefits of the ingredients, which the box front claims “can help reduce cholesterol, support healthy arteries and promote healthy blood pressure.”


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